A Northland man was sentenced to community detention on tax fraud charges when he appeared in court this month.

William Robert Eskdale pleaded guilty to 28 charges and appeared in the Whangarei District Court where he was sentenced to 4 months community detention with 100 hours community work.

An application for a discharge without conviction was refused and Eskdale was ordered to pay $20,000 reparation within 7working days.

Over a three-year period, PAYE were taken from employee’s wages, but the money was never paid to Inland Revenue as required.

More than $133,000 in PAYE was not paid even though there was enough money in banks accounts to pay on the due dates.

Due to Eskdale’s actions workers lost their KiwiSaver Employer Contributions and Employer Contribution Tax, and money wasn’t paid off their student loans.

Eskdale had control over three companies. 
• Eskdale Freight’s offending occurred over 5 months and involved a total of $75,437.03 core PAYE debt ($75,437.03 after late payments/credits).
• Fleetbuild’s offending occurred over 18 months and involved $62,483.44 of core PAYE debt ($52,564.75 after late payments/credits).
• And Three Tens' offending occurred over 5 months and involved $6,822.44 of core debt ($5,394.94 after late payments/credits).

Tax fraud is not a victimless crime and impacts all New Zealanders because the money legitimately owed in tax never gets used for the benefit of Kiwis.

The tax system relies of people’s honesty and this sort of offending undermines the whole system.

© Scoop Media